February 22, 2007

My friends, I believe I am living in the wrong world. I have just seen the new Diane Keaton movie, “Because I Said So.” We attended this movie solely because Diane Keaton was starring in it. It definitely was a highly cute film. My top requirement for going to see a movie and forking over those outrageous admission prices is that it be entertaining, make me laugh, and have not one drop of blood and guts as I do not do violence. The movie met those requirements.

However, if the social mores depicted in this highly cute movie are really those of the general population these days, then I am paralyzed for my young granddaughters. These highly cute movie characters were all a bunch of skanks! They were so highly cute I nearly missed the real message, which was skankiness. Also, and by the way, Keaton’s character was a 60-year old, over-bearing single mother. The costume designer made her wear crinolines, for Heaven’s sake. I think I can definitely tell you that this fashion faux pas will not catch on in my age group.

In stark juxtaposition to this highly cute film that promotes skankiness, I have discovered a ratty box of romance novels that were published in the 1960’s and 70’s. This was before the world turned, like one’s stomach might on a bad night, and the moral standards we were used to then were ratcheted down to somewhere below the sewer line. These old novels are enticingly romantic, big on character development and minute detail for plot, big on scenery, and not a bit boring, unlike the soft porn that supposedly passes for romance novels today. Young folks who think that having sex with everybody and anybody as soon as possible is all there is to the man and woman mystique are very sadly mistaken. But, by now, that may be all there is to relationships these days, with Hollywood pounding that empty message in, even in the guise of cuteness. There is no mystique.

We’ve just got to stop falling for crassness and paying for it, and develop some standards once again. And puh-leeze, news media, stop telling me about Britney Spears ! I do not care if she shaves her head or paints her pubis green. There is no need to show me either thing.

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Glory be! We are expecting another blessed event in the family. As a surprise for my expectant daughter-in-law, I wanted to send her a present of some new nursing gowns. I have discovered that those gowns, with the hidden slits in front to allow for ease of nursing an infant, have all but gone extinct. I think I bought the last one in Atlanta and had to pay $119 for it at Chickweeds. The laundry instructions recommended special care, but Honey, in this family, mine included, garments have to live or die in the washing machine and the dryer and that’s the way it is.

I’m wondering who decided that these useful nursing gowns needed to be phased out? They are so nice for feedings in the middle of the night.

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Well, despite a lot of flak from the community after the very regrettable Jo Ann Pinder episode of last summer, when Ms. Pinder was summarily dismissed as head of our successful public library system, which was a huge black eye for Gwinnett County if ever there was one, our Commissioners have seen fit to reappoint two of the CGPL board members that helped perpetrate that fiasco. District 4 Commissioner Kevin Kenerly has reappointed Margaret Tiller to a three-year term, which expires on December 31, 2010. District 2 Commissioner Bert Nasuti has reappointed Dale Todd to a three-year term, which expires the same time Tiller’s does.

It is unbelievable. If ever a Gwinnett County board needed to be restructured, it was this one. Now we are stuck with that sorry kangaroo court. Other board members’ terms don’t expire until 2008.

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I’m glad to hear the hawks screeching back in the woods through the open windows. We have had a family of hawks nesting back there for years and I’m glad they are still with us. I’ve missed hearing the owls this winter, though, in this, their nesting season. Perhaps they have moved on. Our deer friends have all but cleaned out the new bushes I painstakingly planted back in the woods last summer as an experiment, in an effort to restore some foliage to the denuded forest floor. Hopefully the deciduous ferns will manage to reappear, but everything else is pretty much toast. For months I thought the azaleas and hollies might make it, but the deer finally got to them all, even the Iron plants. They have, however, spurned the Hellebores, which are in lovely bloom now. They are popularly called Lenten roses.

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I know I haven’t filed an “Over Coffee” column for quite some time. Sadly, I was in mourning for my beloved chocolate Labrador Clovie, whom we raised from puppyhood and lost finally in January. She was nearly 14. I can still hardly sit at my computer without her abiding on her big cushion beside me and reminding me it is surely time for lunch.

Hope all is well and thanks for reading.